Boeing Co.’s new Seal Beach support center for commercial airline customers reflects a significant change in plans for the Chicago-based aerospace giant’s sprawling real estate holdings along Orange County’s coastline.
The center’s home is in Building 81 at 2201 Seal Beach Blvd.—once part of Boeing’s St. Louis-based Defense, Space & Security unit. It was one of two properties slated for sale in late 2012, when the 11-building, 45-acre campus came under a massive nationwide consolidation plan, the Business Journal reported at the time.
The second floor—once a relic of World War II—is now the bustling hub of the Boeing commercial airplanes operation center. That will host three daily shifts staffed with about 400 engineers to handle more than 400 daily calls and service requests from airlines around the world.
Boeing has also scrapped plans to sell the eight-story adjacent property, Building 80, which will be used to house the program’s expansion.
Six-Figure Salaries
The company is drawing upon the region’s deep pool of aerospace engineers and management in a hiring plan that will eventually total 1,300 workers in Seal Beach and a related office in Long Beach. Salaries are expected to average at least $100,000.
The consolidation plan that originally called for the two buildings to be sold continues despite the adjustment made for the control center. Other ramifications for Orange County include expected closures of facilities in Huntington Beach and a building demolition there—part of Boeing’s goal to cut $1.6 billion in expenses nationally by 2015.
The larger cost-cutting campaign makes the hiring push in Seal Beach especially welcome news for the region’s aerospace industry and Boeing, both of which have had employment declines over the years.
“This has a significant impact,” said Thomas Croslin, vice president of engineering at the Southern California Commercial Airplanes division in Long Beach.
Croslin singled out Seal Beach, Huntington Beach and surrounding areas that could get a boost in home sales, retail spending, and other positive effects from the new hires.
Boeing remains Orange County’s fourth-largest employer, with 6,600 workers despite cuts of about 3,000 positions in recent years.
And Southern California remains the undisputed leader in the industry despite several decades of declines since the Cold War ended. Numerous key companies in the industry have a presence in the region, and the sector still employs tens of thousands of workers across several counties, topping other industry centers in Washington state and Texas.
Boeing plans to relocate the control center from Washington to Seal Beach by the end of 2015.
OC
Texas was never in serious contention as the company sought a new location, according to Croslin, who pointed to the base of engineering talent in OC as a determining factor.
“Even though the price of that operation might be a little more expensive, the availability and resources here just blows all the other states away,” Croslin said. “California provides us with a very rich resource pool that we couldn’t get anywhere else.”
Boeing’s history in the state dates back to 1922, when aviation pioneer Donald Douglas Sr. built planes in Santa Monica, according to the company.
Building 81 in Seal Beach emerged as the front-runner last year when Lynne Thompson, vice president of Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes Customer Support division, toured a number of the company’s properties and others in the region. Thompson wanted an open area that encouraged collaboration.
“They wanted to put me in a little conference room in the corner of the operations center, and I said, ‘We’re not moving into this little computer room,’ ” she recounted. “We walked into here, and I said, ‘This is the place.’ ”
Hospital for Airplanes
The new center is where structural, stress, system and flight operations engineers will handle customer concerns on troubleshooting, repairs and maintenance, as well as monitor fleets in the air and on the ground to help improve product performance and customer service.
“This will be like a hospital where all the sick airplanes will go, and all the doctors and nurses will be working together to make sure they cure whatever’s ailing that airplane and get it back in the skies as quickly as possible,” Thompson told employees and public officials during a Sept. 12 opening ceremony. This is a business where “minutes and hours really matter, both for our customers and for passengers.”
The company has about 800 airline customers that operate more than 13,000 Boeing commercial planes. The busiest shifts will be in the middle of night due to the barrage of planes in flight in the Middle East and Asia, Thompson said.
The transition is well under way to relocate Boeing’s support program from Puget Sound, where it was established seven years ago. Staffers who specialize in the 737 Classic and 757s moved to the Seal Beach building last year. Workers trained on Douglas airplane parts on 757s were the first to transition here this year and will be followed by staffers experienced in existing 737s, 747s, 767s and 777s aircraft.
By the end of 2015, when the relocation is expected to be complete, the operations center will provide service support for those next-generation aircraft models, as well as out-of-production airplanes.
Boeing will staff about 25% of the new positions with employees from the Seattle area.
Rotunda
It took Boeing about eight months to transform the World War II era-looking facility into a modern-day control room designed in a rotunda, featuring several 80-inch flat- screen TVs that surround triple-monitor stations under its 22-foot ceiling.
Engineers and support staff can monitor weather patterns around the world and other global events from their seats. Monitors track service requests by the hour that turn red if deadlines are missed. Other screens track grounded planes that sustained significant damage, like a collapsed landing gear.
Also, data is gathered on days an aircraft is out of service, and associated costs, among other metrics.
Analytics have improved dramatically at Boeing in recent years.
“In the old days we didn’t get anything off the airplane,” Croslin said.
That was only 25 years ago.
The first-generation 737s provided some downloadable data during flight.
The 777 aircraft offered even more. Today, ground control can capture nearly every measurement and rating on Boeing’s modern 787.
“We now have the ability to watch a fleet flying and know they’re going to need this part when they land,” Croslin said.
